The opening keynote address at the recent Add-on-Con conference (December 11, 2008, Mountain View, California) focused on how to make money producing and/or distributing browser add-ons.

You know, those cool little add-ons or ‘plugins’ such as the Alexa toolbar or SEO for Firefox.

The consensus was that, in general, the same monetization methods available for websites are available for browser add-ons. The models cited included selling ad space (i.e within the add-on), promoting affiliate products, and building and selling add-ons to other companies.

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Yesterday, my husband and I had a little chat about Internet marketing products - ebooks, programs, systems, courses, etc - aimed at teaching you how to perform some aspect of Internet marketing. This, in turn, led to a discussion about ‘the dirty little secret of Internet marketing products’…

Now, Simon is a rather skeptical guy. And he generally shies away from any kind of ‘how to make money online’ product. That said, he has certainly invested in a number of products over the years that, while not promising to turn you into a millionaire overnight, teach practical skills e.g. how to do Google Adwords, how to do search engine optimization, and so on.

So, I guess he’s that breed of Internet marketing customer that is turned OFF by cheesy headlines. I’m similar, but since I’m more familiar with who’s who in Internet marketing I’m probably not as skeptical as he is about certain things (although I’m probably more skeptical about others!).

When it comes to high profile Internet marketing products, Simon says that, by default, he doesn’t believe most of the claims made in sales letters and other promotional materials.

And that’s where we differ. Depending on the Internet marketing product in question - and, in particular, the Internet marketer behind the product - my default position is that I DO believe the claims made in the sales letter.

But here’s the thing: while I believe that so-and-so Internet marketing guru probably made the money they said they did by following the system or using the program they’re selling… I also think there’s a rather significant piece of information missing from the sales letter.

It’s the dirty little secret of all, if not most, Internet marketing products, and it’s simply this: for the system or program to work… YOU have to work.

YOU have to roll up your sleeves and put time, sweat, tears and perhaps even money into learning, understanding and applying the steps… YOU have to persist when the program or system doesn’t yield instant results… YOU have to innovate when, for whatever reason, the cookie cutter approach is no longer effective.

Search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, copywriting, affiliate marketing, article marketing… they all require work!

Now, admittedly, there IS an alternative to you doing work. It’s called: paying someone else to do the work.

But even that doesn’t let you off the hook. Having worked purely as a consultant to at least one large organization where just about every aspect of Internet marketing is outsourced to various different agencies, I can honestly say there is STILL a lot of work to be done.

Coming up with new ideas… strategic planning… managing all the agencies… evaluating their results… reporting to other parts of the business… troubleshooting… and that’s just SOME of what the Internet marketing people do. It doesn’t even approach what everyone else does in the business - producing the products, delivering customer support, building the business, and so on.

So if we need to do work - and often a lot of work - to achieve the results so-and-so Internet marketing guru has achieved… why don’t they tell us that in the sales letter?

Well, firstly, if you read through the sales letters put out by the most respected Internet marketers you’ll see that some DO actually mention that work is involved. They might say something along the lines of “Don’t read this unless you’re serious about making 7 figures this year and are prepared to do what it takes to make it…”

But that doesn’t sound too much like hard work does it? I mean it’s not as if the copy says “Don’t read this unless you’re serious about making 7 figures this year and are prepared to: stop watching TV, halve the time you normally spend with family and friends, work at least 60 hours per week, cold-call at least 10 people a day…”

(Am I exaggerating? Well, depending on the aim of the Internet marketing product in question, I’m just touching the surface…)

That said, there are two main reasons why Internet marketing product sales letters - and, indeed, sales letters for most other ‘how-to’ products - don’t and SHOULD NOT emphasize the work involved.

Firstly, as indicated above, you CAN indicate that work is involved without needing to spell it out. Anyone who’s hot for your product will still see what they want to see, and will likely skim over the ‘work’ bit and focus on the ‘end result’ bit.

Secondly, what IS selling if it’s not harnessing the prospect’s emotions - their hopes, desires, fears, etc - in order to persuade them to take a certain action step (e.g. buy your product). You’re not seriously going to do anything - like talk about how hard it is to make your system work - that sabotages your ability to sell, are you?

I mean, does anyone really expect ads for Coca-Cola to talk about how much sugar the drink contains, and how excess sugar intake is linked to tooth decay and obesity?

It just makes sense to emphasize the positives, and avoid or neutralize the negatives, in order to persuade someone to buy.

BUT… if you’re both an Internet marketer who sells stuff AND an entrepreneur who looks for tools and information to help build your business… it probably doesn’t hurt to occasionally repeat the dirty little secret of Internet marketing products!

The problem with Twitter is… it doesn’t make any money.

Yep, seems everyone is making money off Twitter… except Twitter! So while various Internet marketers will tell you how great Twitter is, in terms of generating traffic, a list, buzz, sales etc, Twitter is still looking for a way to make money.

An article by Corvida in ReadWriteWeb indicates that the venture capitalists who have funded Twitter are expecting the company to establish a revenue model in 2009. That’s right, harking back to the dotcom days of the late 1990s, Twitter was founded - and funded - without having a model for making money!

In fact, asking how Twitter will make money was, until recently, a ’stupid’ question. Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures which helped fund the company is quoted to have said:

“It’s like the stupidest question in the world: How’s Twitter going to make money. It’s like ‘How was Google going to make money? Eventually Google was going to make money and they figured out how to do it and they figured out a great business, and I think the same thing is true with Twitter.”

But Wilson has since recanted his statements… perhaps in light of current economic conditions.

Sure, Google started out as an exceptional, ground-breaking search engine and only later established a model for making money. But I wonder: for every technology company that began without any idea of how to make money, and ended up successfully working out one (or more)… how many other companies self-destructed because they were never able to commercialize their technology, or at least sell something that people wanted to buy?

I don’t know the answer. But we need only look at what happened during the dotcom bust of 2000 to get an inkling of what happened to many companies that lacked an effective business model.

So it will be interesting to see what Twitter comes up with, and more generally, how many non-money-making Web 2.0 companies make it through the current period.

Oh, and why is Twitter’s inability to make money a problem? Well, if Twitter is helping YOUR business… then you’ll want it to stick around, right? Well, it won’t be able to stick around… unless it becomes self-sufficient. In other words, unless it makes money.

Source: Corvida, “Revenue Model for Twitter Coming Soon”, ReadWriteWeb, October 18, 2008

To all those Internet entrepreneurs whose hopes of raising venture capital for their business have just been dashed, here’s how to grow your business regardless of the economic crisis (and a real business at that). And to all those Internet entrepreneurs who have other money concerns… this applies to you too!

Quick background: we started our first Internet company in 1997 (an IT security company) and survived and thrived through the dot com crash. We later sold the company in 2002.

Because we started our business with no money (we were young and didn’t have any) except for a paltry $45,000 loan from family that quickly ran out since we used it to pay rent, buy furniture and live on… and because our tentative approaches to VCs never got anywhere… we had no choice but to work out how to make money fast.

And funnily enough, we managed to do so. So here are five (5) tips for bringing in the money when times are tough, based on what we did just a few years ago:

1. Work out what you can develop and sell to customers ASAP. All those big, long-term projects that rely on huge wads of cash you don’t have? Either put ‘em on the back burner while you focus on getting customers (not VCs) to pay you, or break ‘em into components so you can start selling at least one of those components within the next 6 months.
2. Focus more on marketing, less on product development. When the going gets tough, the tough start selling.
3. Focus on getting products out, rather than getting them perfect. Don’t compromise on quality of course, but you can incorporate all the ‘bells and whistles’ into later releases.
4. Cut down on all the nice-to-have-but-not-essential expenses. If it means bringing the business back into your house or garage, so be it.
5. (Optional) Keep in touch with your current or potential VCs. Funnily enough, taking all the above steps will not only help you build a real (profitable) business, but will help you prove to VCs that you have a real business and that you can get through the tough times. It’s resilient businesses like yours that VCs will prefer to invest in going forward.

At least one social network knows how to make money: LinkedIn, the social network for business professionals.

Presumably because of both its desirable member base - professional and affluent - and the network’s ability to target them, LinkedIn has experienced enormous demand from companies wanting to advertise on the network. So much so that it’s able to charge CPMs (cost per thousand impressions) for display ads that start at $30 CPM and text ads from between $12 and $20 CPM. This is when most social networks are lucky to get $1 CPM.

Demand from advertisers appears to have prompted LinkedIn to launch its own ad network. It will also work ad network Collective Media (which targets high-end media sites) to let other select sites target its users when they visit those partner sites.

LinkedIn has 27 million registered users, far behind the 100 million Facebook has worldwide. But, TechCrunch points out, it’s not about quantity… it’s about quality.

It seems that LinkedIn’s ‘quality’ 27 million users offers advertisers a much more valuable audience - with members having an average household income of $110,000, 64 percent male, an average age of 41, and 49 percent ‘decision makers’.

Presumably advertisers expect to achieve a greater return on investment (ROI) money by advertising to these people rather than the members of other social networks.

Source: Erick Schonfeld, “LinkedIn To Launch Its Own Ad Network”, TechCrunch, September 14, 2008